


told you so

by civillove



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:53:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23300461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/civillove/pseuds/civillove
Summary: anon requested: anything for malcolm and dani in your arsenal, by any chance?? anything pre-relationship would make my day 💖--hope this makes your day anon! This oneshot includes domesticity, case-work, flirting and two idiots having feels for one another.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 17
Kudos: 107





	told you so

Dani knows that just because she’s climbed through a lot of mud to get where she is, that it doesn’t mean she’s done bein’ in the dirt. Her father used to tell her that there would always be people on her heels, watching her back, waiting for her to fail so they could step into the footprints she’s made for herself.

It holds hands with her distrusting nature, the feeling that she could lose things that she’s worked hard for by someone reaching out and _taking._ This is why she so often keeps her emotions close to her chest because they’re safe there, hardening like a shield.

Before she found this team that she has now, this family, Dani had to work with a lot of people that refused to see her potential, trust in her abilities, or respect her. Even though so much has changed for women in law enforcement, she still runs into the occasional ignorance that assumes she can’t do her job. Men have told her to her face that she’s weak, that she’ll never make an impact, that she should quit while she’s ahead because the job isn’t for ‘soft’ demeanors.

Dani’s not the type of person who bites down on her tongue, that stays quiet, but sometimes gritting her teeth and driving herself forward says more than her words ever can. She’s proved people wrong; she’s thrown statements back into faces and found a place that not only accepts her but helps her grow as a cop.

She digs up the very ground she’s standing on in order to make a difference, even if that means she sinks into the Earth. But it’s worth it, it’s worth it every time, regardless if she always has dirt underneath her fingernails.

Zipping up her leather jacket, Dani grabs her bag to sling over her shoulder. She didn’t make it into the parking garage today and she _really_ hopes her time at the meter didn’t expire when she wasn’t checking. In theory, she should be good for another ten minutes but New York City streets can be wildly unpredictable.

She flicks her hair up from under her jacket as she passes sets of glass cubicles, waving to JT before turning down a hall and bumps directly into Bright who’s stopped to read a text message on his phone.

“Shit, sorry,” She says as he turns around, shaking his head as he slips his cell into his coat pocket.

“My bad, I wasn’t paying attention.”

She nods her head, adjusting her bag on her shoulder, “I _was_ going to say you’re kinda in the middle of the hallway…”

He smiles a little, dipping his chin as they start moving towards the same destination. “Sometimes my mother texts me either a novel within a text message or seven questions at the same time. Zero to a hundred.”

A soft laugh leaves Dani’s lips as she pushes the door open to the steps, Bright stepping through after she insists, “I’ve only met your mom once but that _definitely_ sounds like her.”

Malcolm hums but offers nothing else, stuck in his own thought process as they head down the steps to leave. There’s a case they’re currently working on, a murder at a hotel that looks like a love affair gone wrong but the profiler isn’t so sure. He’s trying to nail down the personality disorder cluster and he’s stuck between B and C, giving them different suggestions of what they might be dealing with.

It hasn’t really been helping with their suspect pool. Dani thinks it has nothing to do with love but she plays with the thought to let Bright work out his ideas first.

“Our murder vic worked at another precinct, yeah?” She asks as they step out into the New York streets. She shivers, pulling the collar of her jacket up to try and block out the wind. She disrupts his train of thought; Dani can see the words still playing across his gaze.

“What? Oh, yeah. That’s what Gil said, 62nd which is…” He trails off.

“Brooklyn,” She offers, digging in her bag for her car keys. “Ranges from 60 to 94, which would make sense when the murder occurred in a hotel in the same area. Hopefully some of the officers who worked with him can help us build the profile. Could be someone the victim knew from there.”

They wander as they talk towards her car and she fiddles with her keys, thoughts wandering back to her earlier days as a beat cop. Sometimes she misses it but often she doesn’t, the familiar gnawing returning to her stomach as it replays in her mind like a home-video. Dani always felt like she had to look over her shoulder, make sure her work was perfect; rarely sleeping and overthinking, trying to prove too much, too fast, without trusting herself.

“You okay?” Malcolm asks as they get to her car, his eyes assessing her like he’s trying to read an X-Ray.

She straightens her back before nodding her head, “Yeah, I’m just tired. Long day.”

He purses his lips, doesn’t believe her, rolling on the balls of his feet, “You get this…scrunch in-between your eyebrows when something’s bothering you.”

Dani lets out a long sigh and unlocks her car, opening the driver’s door and leaning against the frame a moment, “You know it’s annoying when you do that, right?” But there’s a gentle teasing that underlies her words because she _does_ appreciate his general concern about her—she just wishes he wouldn’t pry when she’s not interested in sharing.

They talk, they’re getting _better_ at knowing one another, at letting their walls come down…but that doesn’t mean she’s ready to have a demolition crew come in and explode everything to dust and rubble.

Bright has to earn that.

His winces, a bit sheepish, “Sorry.”

“You also didn’t have to walk me to my car, it’s a block away from the precinct.” She points out, taking her bag off her shoulder to throw into the backseat.

“I wanted to,” He says carefully, trying not to trip-wire her aggravation but…there’s also something playing out on his face, a question he’s not saying out loud.

It takes her a moment, but she finally gets it with a soft huff of air that pillows into the night sky like cigarette smoke. “You want a ride home, don’t you.” It’s not a question.

He grins. “ _Now_ who sounds like the profiler?”

She rolls her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching up, “Get in the car.”

The drive to Malcolm’s apartment is short and they talk about anything that’s not the current case.

\--

She’s worked with this specific Brooklyn precinct before, especially the lead officer who walks around like he’s invented police work. It’s not that he doesn’t have a lot to be proud of, he does, but somehow that only leads to his arrogance. She tries not to compare him and Gil because that’s insulting to her current boss but while Gill cares about his team, lets them take credit for things, wears his successes modestly…Chandler is the exact opposite.

He uses the people around him like steppingstones, trying to get to the very top. He takes his job seriously but makes sure the reports reflect that he thinks up the best plans of action. Chandler is an unmovable force that at this point in his career, no one tries to move through. It doesn’t mean he’s not good at his job, he’s _excellent,_ almost to a point where it’s unfortunate he’s not more of a team player.

Dani’s been burned by him before and she’s _not_ looking forward to this brief where they’re all stuck in a room together.

She busies herself by her desk, watching Chandler be welcomed into the conference room with all their evidence. He smiles at Gil and JT, reaching out to shake their hands as they talk back and forth. She can’t quite make out what they’re saying through the class, but she observes that her former colleague almost seems…warm, approachable.

She knows he’s nothing of the sort.

Wrapping her hands around her coffee mug, she takes a slow breath, feeling someone that has to be Bright come up beside her, “I thought _I_ was running late.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek, “I was just heading in, needed coffee.”

He hums and she can feel his eyes brush over her hands; she distantly wonders what words he’s reading there, if he can detail her story just from her fingers. “At your desk?” Just from the tone of his voice, she can tell he’s already figured out her demeanor.

Dani turns a little to look at him, leaning against the edge of her desk. Bright glances between the conference room and her, straightening his shoulders a little. The blue sweater he’s wearing today brings out the clear water of his eyes, almost to a point where she could drown in them.

“You know him; Chandler.”

She draws her mug in and holds it with one hand against her chest, the warmth slipping into the fabric of the long-sleeved shirt she has on, “I used to.”

Dani purposely doesn’t elaborate, she’s not going to put all of Chandler’s business out into the open even though he probably deserves it—for someone else to know what kind of cop, what kind of man, he is. But that’s not who _she_ is, so she takes a long sip of coffee and sits up from her desk.

She can feel Malcolm sifting, trying to dig through her micro-expressions, flip through it like a case file in front of him. He opens his mouth to ask something when Gil comes out of the conference room,

“You two coming today?”

She clears her throat and nods, glancing at Bright before they walk towards their work for the afternoon.

\--

They wind through introductions and she isn’t sure whether Chandler is purposely not remembering her or if he genuinely can’t place who she is until he shakes her hand. She rattles off her name and something flickers on his face, realization, a smirk in the corners of his mouth that she doesn’t like.

His eyes tick her up and down, squeezing her hand a little longer than necessary, “Very nice to see you again officer Powell.”

Dani hums and pulls her hand back, flexing her fingers as she sets her mug down on the table. “Actually, it’s detective now.”

He grins, leaning back against the wall near the white-board, tension thick in the room like a fog settling over them.

“Good for you, sweetheart.” He winks and it instantly digs under her skin, the nickname boiling something hot and thick like molasses in her veins.

Gil briefly steps out of the room to take a phone call with the hotel manager about the case and JT is busy pinning the updated autopsy reports in connection with other evidence to really notice. But she can tell Bright can sense it, as he usually does when he’s reading a room, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders tight.

“Malcolm Bright,” He steps in front of her, purposely invading her space so that she can take a step back and out of the conversation, reaching his hand out for Chandler to shake. “Profiler. Should we get started? We don’t need to wait for Gil to talk about what we’ve got.”

Dani moves to sit at the table at the far end where she can see the evidence spread out before her, pulling a notepad close to her so she can take some comments down about the officer that they lost. “Ryan Stero was in your unit, right? For how long?”

Chandler leans against the small ledge near the window, sticking his hands in his pockets. When she glances up at Bright, she can see him clocking the behavior, tucking it into the back of his mind for later. He looks at her briefly before walking towards the white-board, running a hand through his hair as he thinks.

“About four years. Good kid, especially at makin’ coffee,” He jokes and even though she’s purposely looking down at her mug, tapping her pen on the table, she can feel his eyes like a cinderblock on her shoulders, “You remember that kinda work, right doll?”

Before she has a chance to speak, Bright takes an autopsy photo off the white-board and sets it on the table. It’s Ryan sprawled out on a hotel floor, blood surrounding his head like a crown,

“Because of the proximity of the head wound, this was not someone random. Ryan knew his killer,” He turns the photo on the table so Chandler can get a better look, Dani squeezing her mug so tightly that she swears she hears the ceramic crack.

Some of their conversation fades into the background as she takes a sip of coffee, the liquid suddenly bitter on her tongue. She knows that she has nothing to be ashamed of, that every cop has had to start at the bottom—which sometimes means extra-long shifts, mountains of paper to fill out for other members of the team, grunt work and going on coffee runs. Dani’s always been proud of her journey to get where she is because she loves what she does, she can feel herself making a notable difference with the people she works with.

Something she hopes her father can be proud of.

But it’s like Chandler is digging through her past dirt, purposely adding water to the mix to dilute her hard work, making mud so it’s hard for her to wade through.

“Is that what you see for the murder too, Powell?”

Her name snaps her attention back to Chandler and Bright, who’s looking at her with a slight pinch to his eyebrows. He picks the autopsy photo up and returns it to the board, JT sighing and responding when she doesn’t,

“Listen, Bright may seem like a weird dude but he knows what he’s talking about. If he thinks it’s Borderline Personality Disorder, we go with it.”

Chandler hums, his foot tapping to a consistent tick like a second hand on a clock. “How long you been workin’ with him, hun, can I trust him?” He grins like there’s some sort of secret joke between them and Dani literally has to grind her heels into the ground.

_He’s not worth it—_ if years working with people just like Chandler has taught her anything, it’s to bite her tongue. She knows men like him, cops like him, he’s purposely trying to throw her off with calling her anything but her name. Getting angry, getting upset, it’s exactly what he wants—

And she won’t play into his hand.

“Malcolm is one of the best profilers I know, other than Gil. He knows what he’s talking about.”

She can see the exact same moment where JT makes a similar decision, his eyes telling her about the edges of his frustration with this guy. But like her, he makes sacrifices, he doesn’t throw the ball back into his court and keeps the topic on case.

“Bright, you got other details you wanna share?”

The profiler’s hand is stimming, drawing his fingers up into his palm a few times. Even if she saw none of that, Dani can tell he’s agitated, that muscle in his jaw clenching as he forces himself to deliver a profile,

“Borderline Personality Disorder often has unstable emotions, impulsivity. Something set our killer off to the point where they grabbed a paperweight on the desk to use it as the murder weapon. Not my first choice,” He mumbles and JT raises an eyebrow at him.

The profile distracts her momentarily, a comment _very_ much like Bright making the corners of her mouth twitch as she scribbles down another set of notes.

He clears his throat, shrugging his one shoulder at JT before continuing, “BPD usually has a very strong sense of…” Bright pauses a moment, glancing up at Chandler, “Opinions. Black-and-white thinking.”

Dani clicks her pen, “So, something like all-or-nothing?”

Malcolm dips his chin forward, “Exactly.” He bites his tongue, his irritation starting to flare as Chandler gets up from where he’s sitting to hover around the back of Dani’s chair to look at the notes she’s writing. “While BPD usually has self-destructive behavior, it’s more likely it’s connected more to self-compulsion, the killer has angry outbursts that overwhelm them.”

Chandler hums and sticks his hands in his pockets, sounding impressed. “Sounds like another guy on the force, worked together with Ryan a few times—David Alcott.” He reaches over and taps Dani’s notepad. “Two ‘t’s, sweetheart.” He glances up at Bright. “And you’re sure about the impulsive behavior bit? Feel like I haven’t met a cop who isn’t a bit testy.”

Bright’s mouth works into a straight line, his one hand shaking as he puts it into his pocket, “That’s what the word ‘impulsive’ implies, they can’t control it. Almost like how you can’t keep those hypocorisms to yourself even though you know you’re bothering Dani.”

Chandler’s back snaps like a rubberband, instantly walking towards Malcolm like he might throw a punch. “What the hell did you just say to me? Hypoco-what-now?”

There’s definite mischief working in Bright’s blue eyes that Dani can see from her chair as she stands, taunting almost, like he _wants_ Chandler to hit him. He stands his ground, the tension in the air almost lighting into a wildfire when Gil opens the door.

He ends the call on his cell phone, pocketing it before he looks around the room, eyes falling on the back of Malcolm’s shoulders. “What’s going on? Everyone alright?”

“Fine,” Bright says quickly, taking a step back. “I was merely demonstrating what BPD could present like.” He smiles a little, momentarily thrilled he’s gotten under Chandler’s skin enough to rattle him.

Despite not needing anyone to stand up for her, Dani can’t deny that the astonished look on Chandler’s face wasn’t worth seeing.

\--

Dani pulls her leather jacket from the back of her desk chair and slips it around her back, sighing at the familiar scent of leather. She looks up as Bright comes out of Gil’s office, a tinge of a smile wanting to work its way onto her face because it looks like he just got scolded by the principal. She shakes her head, taking one more sip of her coffee that’s grown cold and leans against the desk as he makes his way to her.

Malcolm gives her a soft smile, letting out a slow sigh through his nose. “Apparently, it’s not appropriate to point out when I’m the smartest person in the room through profiling.”

A pleased laugh slips out as she crosses her arms over her chest. “You know you could have just said the phrase ‘pet names’. Would have gotten the same riled up reaction.”

He shrugs his one shoulder, “I knew he wouldn’t know what hypocorism meant; like I was going to pass up that opportunity.”

She hums, amusement blooming warmly in her chest before she sticks her hands in her pockets. Dani takes a good look at the profiler in front of her, eyes brushing over the long lines created by his sweater. She tries not to think about how he’d look in a more relaxed setting, sweater rolled up to his elbows, dress shirts and slacks traded in for comfortability.

She chews on the inside of her cheek, running a hand through her curls, “You didn’t have to do that for me, so you know. I could take it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have to,” He says pointedly, holding her gaze until she believes him.

Dani smiles gently, bumping their shoulders together as she stands from her desk. Gil comes out of his office, approaching them with that ‘father-hands-on-his-hips’ routine that makes her feel like she’s in trouble,

“Chandler wants someone to check out Alcott’s last known location, which is in the Red Hook Waterfront.”

She blinks, eyebrows crinkling softly together because she’s not sure why Gil would be telling her this. She has a detail with JT at the hotel, interviewing staff, gathering more evidence from the crime scene. Checking Alcott’s last location is a good idea but…

Oh.

“Don’t say it,” She mumbles under her breath, mostly to herself but Gil sighs, nodding his head.

“Chandler wants you to do it. Take Bright with you,” He gives him a look, “Think we should avoid you two working in the same room together.”

“Fine by me.” Bright says quickly, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet at the idea. “Did you know that Dutch colonists actually coined Red Hook, _'Roode Hoek'_? _Hoek_ doesn't even mean hook, it's kinda like…corner.”

Gil gives Dani a look before giving her arm a purposeful squeeze, “Do I need to send backup with you?”

She shakes her head, letting out a patient sigh. “Nah, I got it. I’ll let you know if we see anything.”

She zips up her jacket and motions towards the steps; it was going to be a long night.

\--

Dani listens to her boots click against the pavement as they round the corner near a dilapidating warehouse on the edge of the water in Red Hook. Despite the many touristy spots during the day, they’re off the beaten path towards a few empty buildings closer to the outskirts. The inky black sky practically blends into the horizon of water, gentle waves crashing against rock, her leather jacket doing little to stop the ice-cold breeze from kissing open spots of her skin.

They have one point of reference to look into—Alcott was called to check out a drug disturbance at an abandoned warehouse but then never called back in to the precinct. He’s either still there or this is a dead end; either way, it should be relatively quick. They’ll walk through the warehouse and a little bit of the surrounding area before climbing back into her car, putting the heat on blast and calling Gil to most likely tell him that this was a waste of time.

She draws her jacket a little closer but that doesn’t really help, her fingers a bit frozen as it holds her flashlight even though she has thick gloves on. She wasn’t planning on being outside for this long, consistently forgetting her heavier winter coat in her early morning rush. Dani drives more than takes the subway, does little detail outside and thought she’d be working the hotel angle with JT for this case—becoming an icicle was not on her docket for tonight.

“This should be it.” She pauses outside of a red-brick building, the structure stretching along the length of the water, two rows of curved broken windows. It’d probably a great location for an inside shopping market, or restaurant if it was given a little TLC.

Bright hums, tilting his head back to look up at the building. “I doubt he’s here.”

“Me too,” She looks over at him, shrugging her one shoulder. “But let’s get it over with anyways.”

Moving forward, she slips in through one of the broken windows, her boots cracking down on splintered glass. At the sound, pigeons fly above them into holes in the ceiling, Bright coming in behind her with a long sigh. The building does little to stifle the cold even though the walls stop the breeze, if anything, she kinda feels like she’s in a meat locker. A shiver courses down her spine as she shines her flashlight around them,

“Careful, there’s a lot of chunks of brick from the walls on the floor.”

“Perfect place for a drug trade,” Malcolm mumbles and side-steps over a web of rebar to walk closer with her. She can feel his eyes assessing the building, trying to connect dots that aren’t there because they both know this search won’t span out into anything.

But the crumbling walls aren’t the only thing he’s looking at.

“Are you cold?”

She shrugs, stilling her hand as much as possible as it holds her flashlight. “I’m good, better in here away from the breeze.”

“You’re practically vibrating.” He teases and she hates how warm he looks; thick sweater, a scarf, a very expensive pea coat in navy blue. He’s got a thermos of coffee in his hand that he occasionally sips out of, steam curling out of the top like a chimney. “It’s 30 degrees and that doesn’t even factor in the wind chill coming in off the water—”

She sighs, turning to face him and purposely shines her flashlight in his face. “What are you, my mother or my weather app?”

He grins, tilting a little so he can see her. “I’m just saying. You want my coat? I at least have a scarf and a sweater—”

“No,” She says quickly, turning to walk past another glass catastrophe on the floor. She wonders if searching the second level is even worth it…it’s clear there’s nothing here. “We’ll be back in the car soon. I’m _fine_.”

Bright’s sweeping his gaze over her back, trying to dig between her layers, she can _feel_ it. When she turns to check down another corridor that probably leads to steps, she moves to slip out another window so that she’s back on the waterfront.

His eyes narrow just slightly, sticking his hands in his pockets as he follows her in the direction of the car. “And yet, we both know this has to do with Chandler.”

Dani bites her tongue on calling him _annoyingly perceptive_ and turns her head to look at him, clicking her flashlight off to stick in her pocket, “Am I irritated that he purposely switched my detail for tonight? Yes. Instead of being in a warm hotel with JT I’m down by the river with you.”

“Ouch.” He bumps her shoulder with his own, which only makes her smile. Just a little.

“You know what I mean. Chandler’s just trying to get under my skin and I refuse to let him think he’s bothering me,” Bright’s watching her face, his expression understanding and open. He gets that, he really does, maybe because of sessions he’s had with his father—someone else who’s a professional at aggravating other people.

He nods his head, chewing on his lower lip as he listens to her. There’s a soft admiration on his cheekbones, something just for her.

“I can handle this; he doesn’t get to trip me up.”

He hums, quiet for a moment as he contemplates her words before a gentle head tilt, “And this…has nothing to do with the fact that you’re stubborn?”

She laughs, a quick breath of air that puffs in an off-white between them. “You’re one to talk.”

Malcolm shrugs, “ _I’d_ take the coat, you’re going to get sick.”

Dani burrows her hands into her pockets, picking up her pace just a little as a particularly nasty gust of wind slaps the back of her neck. “I have a strong immune system,” She rattles off, hoping she sounds more confident than she feels. She really _is_ freezing, “Gone through worse than having to be a little cold outside. You’ve seen the inside of the staff fridge, right?”

Bright makes a face, which just tells her _yes._ “Actually, it’s more likely your immune system is relatively weaker given the amount of daily stress you’re under.”

She narrows her eyes at him, “I didn’t ask for a diagnosis, Profiler M.D.”

He screws the top off his thermos, smiling against the rim of it when he goes to take a sip, “It’s gonna be more of an ‘I told you so’ M.D. I think.”

Dani scoffs, glad that they’ve _finally_ reached her car, quickly getting inside. She turns the heat on high, rubbing her hands together…and can’t say no when Malcolm offers her his thermos to sip out of.

\--

She knows the moment that she wakes up the next morning that something is off. Dani reaches for her phone, frowning at the time. She’s slept through two alarms and while she’s not exactly late yet, she knows when she lifts her body out of bed that she’s going to be. It feels like the broken bricks from last night’s warehouse are glued onto her back, her legs and arms wobbly as she tries to make it into her bathroom.

When Dani gets a good look at her reflection, eyes glassy, face drawn and skin pale…she can literally _hear_ Bright say ‘I told you so’ echoing against her eardrums. She sighs, running a hand over her face.

Great.

\--

She calls in to Gil, who tells her to stay home for a few days. JT yells in the background to drink vitamin C because he doesn’t want that shit brought to work and then proceeds to tell her that they caught Alcott last night at the hotel.

The debrief is nice as she sits in her bathroom, waiting for her shower to heat up. Bright asks her how she’s feeling and she bites her tongue on saying ‘fine’ because she doesn’t want to hear him pick the word apart in front of the others. She clears her throat and asks about the profile instead, her voice sounding distinctly like sandpaper rubbing together.

Malcolm says that it makes sense for Alcott to come back to the hotel, to relive the crime he committed even though it was a fit of passion. Apparently, Ryan found out that Alcott wasn’t so much turning in drug dealers as he was working _with_ them. When he tried to confront him, Alcott lost his patience—

Dani chews on her lower lip, the story unfolding in front of her like a manila case file between her fingertips. “Did coming back have anything to do with guilt?”

There’s shifting on the other end before, “I don’t think so,” Bright responds, “more likely he was trying to cover his tracks.”

She hums, rubbing a hand over her forehead before she stands and grabs a towel. Gil rounds the discussion to a close, making sure he repeats himself that she needs to stay home despite if she feels better tomorrow. Dani lets out a slow breath, her hair fluttering up off her face from the action. She supposes a few days to herself wouldn’t be too bad, she rarely takes a vacation anyways.

“Drink lots of water.” Bright says quickly before the call ends.

Dani smiles a little, rolling her eyes before she takes her clothes off and steps into the shower.

\--

The hot water helps her feel better for about an hour before this cold gathers her into its clutches. By the time noon rolls around, she’s in two sweaters, one thick pair of socks, leggings _and_ joggers and her head feels like a shrink-wrapped ham. She attempts to stave off the worst with vitamin C, a few cups of tea and getting some sleep but when she wakes up a second time, she doesn’t feel any better.

It’s probably best just to let it take her through the ups and downs until it passes, and for once she’s thankful for the few days to herself where she can just be a miserable lump of warm clothing. She sniffles, grabbing a tissue to sneeze into when her buzzer rings.

Dani frowns, quickly washing her hands before going into her bathroom to look out the window. It’s Bright with Styrofoam cups in his hands.

She glances at herself in the mirror, eyes and nose rimmed red, cheeks flushed and hair a little frizzy. Literally a disaster but…she supposes she’s seem him high before, so really, what’s she worried about?

She hits the button to let him up and opens up her front door, waiting against the doorjamb for him to appear up the steps. He smiles a little when he sees her, taking her in with one sweep of his eyes.

“Wow, you look…terrible.” Bright hands her a cup of tea, at least that’s what she’s guessing it is, seeing as how her sense of smell is completely gone.

“You know,” She takes the lid off, letting the steam kiss her face and hoping it doesn’t aggravate her sinuses as she lets him into her apartment. “It really doesn’t surprise me that you don’t have a girlfriend.”

He smirks, tilting his head in light amusement, “All this time I thought you couldn't tell I was flirting with you.”

A laugh sneaks up on her and she barely has a moment before she can balance the cup in her hands and cover her mouth with her arm as a coughing fit wracks her body. Malcolm takes a step forward, his hand moving to touch the back of her shoulder before he takes the cup of tea from her so it doesn’t spill.

“Don’t say it.” She warns when she’s finished, throat raw and chest hurting.

He shakes his head, putting his hands up in mock defense despite the cups of tea. “I’m not saying anything…even though I _did_ tell you so.”

She groans as he walks past her into her kitchen, setting the cups down so he can take his coat off. Dani takes a step towards him, watching, grabbing her tea before leaning against the counter.

“You’re not staying,” She says after a moment, holding the cup to her lips and taking a long sip. She might not be able to taste it but it’s comforting nonetheless; she knows without even asking that he’s gotten it at that hole in the wall place near the precinct that they sometimes go to on breaks.

Bright purses his lips for a moment, rolling the sleeves of his button down up to his elbows. “You can barely move you’re bundled up so tight. How many layers do you have on?”

“None of your business.” She replies sweetly and he smirks, beginning to dig through her cabinets until he finds a frying pan. “What are you doing?

“I’m making breakfast.”

“It’s one in the afternoon.”

He hums, going into her fridge for the egg carton, “Perfect time for scrambled eggs and toast. I know a cure-all…try to tell me that you’ve eaten something today.”

Dani narrows her eyes but sits at her table, gaze following the long lines of his back as he busies himself with the task at hand. She’s not exactly sure if she believes him but he’s dedicated now, frying eggs and burning toast.

“I don’t want you to get sick while you’re here.” She tries one last attempt but he waves her off, pouring eggs onto a plate. Dani shakes her head, pinching the bridge of her nose, wishing she could smell the breakfast that he’s making her.

Her stomach rumbles a little as he sets down a plate in front of her, digging in a drawer behind her for silverware. There’s a warm sensation in the pit of her stomach; him being here, searching through her kitchen, making her breakfast and bringing her tea when he doesn’t have to. She attempts to squash it instead of letting it consume her…but it might be too late for that.

“Scrambled eggs with a little bit of hot sauce and cinnamon-sugar toast with butter.” He looks incredibly proud of this weird combination. “My uh, my dad used to make me this when I was younger. When I was sick.”

Dani holds his gaze for a moment, eyes washing over his expression of warmth that he’s struggling with. He doesn’t want the memory to mean something and yet, it clearly does, if he’s making it for her.

She sniffles, unbundling her one hand from her sleeves to reach for his wrist. She runs her thumb over the tree of veins snaking up his arm, his blue eyes finding hers. He turns his hand so that he’s more properly holding onto her, a gentle squeeze before he lets go and joins her at the table.

“This is supposed to be a cure-all?” She teases, grabbing her silverware to dig in. She stabs a few pieces of egg with her fork.

Malcolm scrunches his nose, picking up his tea to take a sip. “Probably not…but it won’t hurt.”

Dani smiles despite how awful she feels, shifting in her seat as she begins to eat the breakfast he’s made her. Her legs lean against his under the table and neither of them move for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading and for leaving kudos / comments. i really appreciate it. any time you wanna chat brightwell i'm at blainesebastian.tumblr


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